The Book of Phoenix (23 page)

I hugged my mother's limp body. She weighed next to nothing. Thin dry skin and hollow bones and no breath. She was dead. I kissed her forehead tenderly and wrapped my red golden wings around her. Let them watch. Let them see how human beings are supposed to treat one another.

I tore off my black burka and left it behind.

I slipped.

 • • • 

When I stepped back to the Sandcastle Hotel, her body was gone from my arms. I was standing on the beach, again. The children were still splashing in the water yards away.

Saeed came rushing over. “Where did you go?” he asked, frowning.

I only stood there looking at my feet. I felt a ball of flames in my chest. A tight ball, rotating like a small sun, golden yellow with hues of blue and the occasional flare of flame. Deep deep in my chest. I looked at Saeed, my face felt as if it would shatter. I shook my head. When I looked up, there were tears in my eyes. I couldn't think. I could hear the tears sizzling as they evaporated on my face.

My body started to shudder and I inhaled but that only made it worse.

“Phoenix? What . . . ?”

He reached out to touch me and for a moment, he did. He touched my collarbone. Then he took his hand from me, hissing with pain. I could smell burning flesh. “Phoenix,” he said. “My love take it easy! What's wrong? Where did you go?”

I spread my wings and flew up, slapping and slicing the leaves of a palm tree. I flew into the warm evening sky and no one saw me for several hours but the birds and bats. When Saeed saw me again, everything had changed. Only a moment after I'd flown off, The Big Eye came with their guns, poison, and armored weapons.

The old African man
named Sunuteel hit pause. Can you blame him? Unlike so many of the characters in the story he'd been listening to for four hours, he was only human. Yes, his sharp old mind was reeling, connecting dots across wide spaces and time and spoken words. His head was swimming, and even though he'd paused the audio file, he could still hear her feverish voice. Her words echoed and bounced around like the atoms of heated matter.

He took a long pull of water and wiped the sweat from his face. It was no longer sunny but it was warm. He froze. The sun. Where had the sun gone? He crawled out of his tent and looked at the sky. For the first time, he noticed that thick heavy clouds had tumbled in. They churned and roiled. He gasped and crawled back into his tent. When he looked at his portable, he saw that there were three messages from his wife.

“How did I not hear the alert?” he hissed. And there was something stranger but he didn't want to say it aloud. Why had the alerts not shown on the virtual screen showing the words as he listened to
The Book of Phoenix
audiobook? Had his alerts been disabled? By whom?

No time to read them. He dropped the portable into his pocket. He got to work, moving as fast as his old body could move, which was not slow. His joints creaked, his knees popped, his whole body ached and groaned, but still he managed to gather all of his things.

He tried not to look at the sky or listen to the too calm air as he trudged across the stretch of hardpan. He nearly tumbled down a sand dune when he came to its peak faster than he anticipated. He'd been looking at his feet, too afraid to look at the sky. Being struck by lightning was a terrible way to die. He hoped his wife would also find shelter. Rarely did ungwa storms happen so close together. It hadn't been more than a few days since he'd left his wife after the last storm. They should have had at least a month before the next one.

He didn't pause when he came to the cave full of computers. He ran and made it inside the cave just as the rains came. The smell of ozone was in his nose. The crash of lightning packed his ears. The heat of charged air caused the hairs on his arms to prickle. He turned and gazed out at a sight he rarely saw. The entire desert awash as water fell from the sky in sheets. Plump clear drops. He stumbled back as a bolt of lightning crashed, striking the sand dune he'd been on moments ago.

He turned to the cave and shivered. The computers were crammed deep inside. The cave was slightly raised, so not a drop of water flowed in, nor did it leak from the ceiling. There was a reason the computers had survived here for so long. He moved in further, keeping a distance between himself and the computers, and sat down on the sand dusted stone floor.

He brought out his portable and read his wife's messages.

“Sunu, where are you? See the sky? There's a periwinkle tint to it.”

“Sunu, why aren't you responding. I am moving. I have a feeling.”

“Sunu? An ungwa storm is coming. If you get this, find shelter.”

He quickly clicked on her coordinates and waited.

“Sunu?!” his wife screamed.

He spoke quickly before she started shouting. “I'm sorry. I'm safe! Are you safe?”

There was a pause. Her face appeared on the tiny portable screen. It distorted with each crash of lightning. “I thought you . . .”

“I'm not,” he said. “I'm in a cave. Where are you?”

“I found two ancients,” she said. Sunuteel nodded. Ancients were the crumbling remains of old metal, stone, or petrified wood structures. “I'm underneath two huge stones. I was lucky. I am safe, too.”

Sunuteel breathed a sigh of relief. His wife probably began searching hours ago, as soon as the sky shifted. Lightning crashed as he looked out of the cave. He blinked. He could have sworn he saw a shape in the flash. A black shape.

“Wife,” he said. “I think I found something.”

Lightning crashed again, and three bolts struck not far from the cave's mouth, consecutively. This time he was sure he saw it. He shuddered, frightened to his old bones. A woman dancing in the flash. “What is that?” he whispered.

“Sunu?” his wife asked frowning. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “Do you remember your premonition?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Have you seen anything?” he asked. “Have you been visited?” He felt silly. He'd never humored his wife about her strange superstitions.

“No,” she said. “But I still have the feeling.”

“I think she is here,” he quickly said. “Wife, there is a woman in the flames outside. I found a cave. It's full of ancient technology, Okeke technology. Our people's sins.” He looked outside. No black dancing woman, but now a wind had picked up. “One of the computers put this file on my portable. It's speaking to me. That's . . . why I missed your messages. I was”—he lowered his voice and whispered—“listening.”

His wife stared at him for so long, that Sunuteel began to wonder if the screen had frozen. “Wife, what do . . . ?”

“You're safe?” she asked. “In that cave?”

He nodded. “It's perfectly dry. No lightning wants to strike it.”

“She's causing the storm,” his wife declared.

Sunuteel was about to deny this. But he couldn't. All he had to do was look at the strange rain and lightning-laden sky outside. The smell of burning sand on the air. He knew what he saw out there. He knew what he'd been listening to on his portable. “Well, what do I do?”

“Finish,” she said. “Let her finish her story, husband.”

When she clicked off and her image disappeared, Sunuteel looked outside. The rain was coming down harder than ever, the lightning crashing near constantly. He put the portable on the sandy ground before him and opened the virtual screen. He clicked un-pause and the spoken words and red words on the screen continued.

Back in Tower 7,
Mmuo had told me that he knew Vera Takeisha Thomas. He'd said they didn't get along at all. But he'd visited her. He enjoyed the arguing. Mmuo didn't have much else to say about her. I doubt he knew what became of her, and all he could probably have imagined was a bad future for her. And he was right. More right than he could have known. My mother had a horrible rest of her life and then came to a horrible horrible end.

And now I was returning to the Sandcastle Hotel. I was coming in hot. Like a missile. It was enough. I was done. I think I decided when I saw Seven hacked to death. Or maybe it was in Ghana when they killed Kofi, a quiet choice I made so deep in me that I wasn't even aware of it. Or maybe I made it when I thought they'd killed Saeed. Or when my temperature began rising that first time in Tower 7, when I was only coming to understand the meaning of my name.

When I saw the Big Eye were there, that which burned in me erupted.

Phoom!

The day was sunny, and I was a second sun. Maybe that's why no one noticed me coming at first. Or maybe it was because of what was happening below. I could hear the gunfire from hundreds of feet in the air. I could see the bodies of the children reddening the water. I burned hotter and flew faster. Saeed. Mmuo.

They'd come looking for us after all. They found us. We were the ones who had underestimated the Big Eye. Maybe Dartise had told them of the hotel before they killed him. On purpose? After torture? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I could slip to just before it all happened. But it didn't matter. It would happen again. Then I would slip and it would happen again. This would always happen. I couldn't save my own mother. All I could bring her was death. Harbinger. Reaper. It was in my DNA.

As soon as I landed, I spotted him lying on some black stones on the beach, the water lapping his body. Three of the children lay on top of him. I ran to him, splashing in the water. My legs felt like boiled cassava. I thought I would collapse. I held my chest, trying to contain my pounding heart. The water steamed as it made contact with my heated body. My folded wings got wet and dried and got wet and dried again. I fell to my knees and moaned, “Mmuo!”

He was not breathing. He was dead. His eyes were open. He was grasping the hands of two of the children. His mouth was open. There were deep holes in his chest and one in his neck. He was naked. His body was held in the sand. Not buried. In the sand. He must have been sinking into the earth when he was shot. What would happen if I moved him? Would his flesh be mingled with the sand?

I shuddered. I was already broken and I could feel myself breaking even more. The water around me boiled with my heat. I grabbed the hand of the dead child grasping Mmuo's left hand and angrily pried his fingers away.

“Get off!” I screamed. “Leave him!”

The child's body floated off when the waves rushed in. I did the same to the other. I leaned back, opened my mouth and sobbed, pressing my hands to my face. I should have been looking for Saeed, but I couldn't move. I just couldn't move. What would I do if I found Saeed's body? I would die and then I would live. I could not die. I was cursed. I couldn't leave this awful world.

“Mmuo!” I wailed. This gentle, powerful man who'd understood matter so profoundly that it allowed him to pass through it. How could they kill him?
Why?
What could he and those children possibly have done to them? He was my brother. I whimpered and then keened loudly, straining every part of my body, my being, willing my spirit to flee. It didn't, I lived. I quieted, looking at him. I calmed. But I did not cool. Let the Big Eye find me. What could they do that they had not already done?
See what I will do to you all
, I thought.

I jumped up and flew off to find Saeed. I never looked back. If I looked back, I knew Mmuo would have been even less substantial. His body had felt soft. The ocean was taking him back.

And the Big Eye were taking my Saeed. There they were, on the road. He was surrounded by ten of them, two were shoving him into one of their trucks. All armed. He was bleeding. He was looking down. Defeated.

“Saeed!” I screamed, hovering high up.
Phoom!
My body caught fire, my wings became flames. I felt beautiful.

I saw him look up and then terror crossed his face. “Phoenix! No!” He reached his hand out to me and then made a fist and clasped it to his chest. “Not you! Don't let them take you! Slip! Slip away! Oof!” One of the Big Eye kicked him hard in the belly, sending him into the truck.

They pointed their guns at me. I don't know why they always pointed guns at me. I was beyond their guns. Numb pathetic evil people.

I could kill them all.

Make them all ash.

But Saeed. My Saeed. “I survive,” he always said.

I slipped.

Seven.

Seven.

Seven.

Seven deadly sinners. None of them would die. They were like me. Long staying. But they were not like me. I wanted to be free and free the imprisoned, they wanted to be free to enslave the world. I could hunt them down, one by one. Or I could do something worse. I was beginning to see that I was meant for something deeper and bigger.

I streaked across the sky. I thought of the alien creature I'd set free that set the others free in Tower 1. Then it had streaked into the sky, off the earth, into space. It could fly like me. But it wasn't like me. I would never leave this earth, not like that.

In warfare, there is a military strategy called “scorched earth.” It is when you destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy as you move through or pull out of their territory. Scorched earth is heartless, it's violent, it's merciless, and it usually involves fire. One of its methods, the strategy of destroying the civilian food supplies in an area of conflict has been banned under Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions. But this is only enforceable by countries who have ratified this protocol. Only the United States and Israel have not. In this way, I am very American.

 • • • 

New York

I remember it well, as an old man remembers the deepest folktales that pleased him most as a child. As the brother of a Yoruba king remembers the burdensome responsibilities that he narrowly escaped. My memory is clear as the waters of the Caribbean's most virgin beaches. My memory is so unpolluted that I can see it happening now. It is happening now. In the bright sky of New York. I burn. Wings of flame. But it is too bright for the people below to really notice me. I burn without needing fuel. My body is like a sun. I give off no smoke.

First the buildings that stand in the risen waters like rotten mangrove trees. I fly low and the water around me boils. The water-logged spoiled skyscrapers that still stand ignite as I pass. I catch glimpses of people who step out on roofs, up to open windows and up from boats. They look down, across, up at me as I pass. Then they burst into ash.

The waters below the buildings boil and steam. Water is life. I am only doing what I am made to do. Taking life. I will take it all. I am a hurricane of death and destruction. I am villain.

I fly past the drowning buildings. Swamps. The grasslands. Networked with roads and trees. I am flying faster now. This is not where I want to be. I see cars and trucks run off the road as they overheat. Some people burn. The tops of trees burst into flame. By now, there are news drones flying with me. I can see them. They remain three miles away. A safe distance from my corona of heat. I am on the side of skyscrapers, the screens of portables, computers, jelli tellis. Those who do not see me in real life, see me in hyper life. What are they saying about me on the newsfeeds? Are people downtown smart enough to flee? Or will they sit there watching me on their small and giant screens, mesmerized as if I am just a character in an action film? But then again, how can I blame them? They created me.

I cannot think straight.

Kofi's parents and siblings were taken to Tower 1. His father had the ability to feel through metal. He was a “goldsmith,” a glorified name in Ghana for blacksmith, and this ability made him good at his job. He passed it on to Kofi's sister and brother. They all died in Tower 1 of lead poisoning when the Big Eye tried to fuse their nerves with cybernetic limbs. That Kofi's mother was taken to Tower 1 was all the records said about her, other than Deceased. I read about them in the Library of Congress.

The Big Eye surrounded us. I am a terrorist.

Berihun and his Ethiopian restaurant. Surviving in a strange soulless land. What would they become? What was his and his wife's point of existing when all they were to this world was dust? Ash. Filth.

Mmuo's nanomites should have been in me, but I'd burned them away. Would I have still been able to hear him if I hadn't burned them away? Mmuo, my brother, I do not care what the genetics say. Mmuo is dead.

Saeed. He had died. Then he had lived. Then they
took
him from me. They are always
taking
from me. The Big Eye. This country. The superpowers. The seven men who drank HeLa's blood and now will never die.

I slip.

All things come from the land, Ani. This was why the alien seed fell and burrowed into it. It's best to start at the beginning. So not Allah. Not Krishna. Not God. Not Nature. Ani. Mmuo spoke of her to me. Ani is the spirit of the earth. The spirit of flesh. When I look deep into my DNA, I see that I know her story. I simply have to speak it from my heart and soul. Weave it like a spider weaves a web on a warm humid evening when the night is about to fall upon it.

Here's how the story goes:

Thousands of years ago, when the world was nothing but sand and dry trees, Ani looked over her lands. She rubbed her dry throat. Then she made the oceans, lakes, rivers, and ponds. Her lands breathed and then danced. Water is life. And from the oceans, she took a deep drink and was refreshed. ‘One day,' she said, ‘I'll produce sunshine. Right now, I'm not in the mood.' She turned over and slept. Behind her back, as she rested, human beings sprang from the sweetest parts of the rivers and the shallow portions of the lakes. Some of them walked out of the ocean onto the beaches.

Human beings were aggressive like the rushing rivers, forever wanting to move forward, cutting, carving, changing the lands. As much time passed, they created and used and changed and altered and spread and consumed and multiplied. They were everywhere. At the apex of their genius, one group of humans built seven mighty towers. Within these towers they performed impossible feats, and as time expanded, the towers grew to impossible heights in reputation, invention, and experience.

The exclusive human beings of this group who ran the towers had the permission of civilian human beings to do whatever it took. They all hoped their towers would be high and amazing enough to prick Ani and get her attention. They built juju-working machines. They fought and invented amongst themselves. They bent and twisted Ani's sand, water, sky, and air. They took her creatures and changed them. They sought to make themselves just like Ani: immortal, all powerful manipulators of earth's lands.

When Ani was rested enough to produce sunshine, she turned over and was horrified by what she saw. She reared up, tall and impossible, furious. Then she reached into the stars and pulled a sun to the land. I am that sun. I am Ani's soldier. I do her will. Ani has asked me to wipe the slate clean.

I reappear in the middle of Times Square. I stand on the flat portion of a jagged splintered surface. The air smells of flowers and smoke, but mostly flowers. The surface below me is damp beneath my bare feet. Beside me is a small forest of wooden splinters. I kneel down and touch the flat surface, the wood.

And that's when I feel it. Deep in my chest. It's a small ball, hot, like the sun. It spreads out. Near my heart, shoulder, breast. I kneel there, with my eyes shut. I am on the stump of The Backbone, its fallen cleaved carcass beside me, its width reaching thirty feet above me.

I see red. Yellow. Orange. Fire.

I open my eyes in time to see the small camp of Big Eye a few hundred feet away. They had expected me, but they didn't expect this. Except one. The woman who comes out of a small tent set up right beside the tree's massive stump. She is short and dark-skinned, born and raised in Nigeria, craving American agency. She is beautiful and wears the black uniform of the Big Eye because she is one of their most dedicated officials. She has pursued me across the globe, found me, lost me and has now found me again. Miserable woman, she walks toward me, her gait sure; she no longer limps. Maybe both of her legs are cybernetic. She holds up a hand that is made of wires, metal, reinforced plastic. She has more in common with the Ledussee than the Big Eye. Misguided woman.

Before the other Big Eye turn around and before the woman named Bumi can reach me, all of them are engulfed in a corona. From wet living sin, bone, flesh to ash. And metal and plastic, also to ash. All things in the city are in chaos, people staring at screens, crashing cars, cowering, praying, cursing, fleeing.

I am the sun. Ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Ani has pulled me to the earth. To wipe the slate clean. This is how it happens. New York's prodigal daughter returns home.

 • • • 

Not just New York. I scorch the earth. Yes, I can do that. I am that. Phoenix Okore blew across the earth. She burned the cities. Turned the oceans to steam. She was the reaper come to reap what was sown. Wherever those seven men lived. Let them die. Let everything die.

Let that which had been written all be rewritten.